Selling Sickness

In this hard-hitting indictment of the pharmaceutical industry, Ray Moynihan and Allan Cassels show how drug companies are systematically using their dominating influence in the world of medical science, drug companies are working to widen the very boundaries that define illness. Mild problems are redefined as serious illness, and common complaints are labeled as medical conditions requiring drug treatments. Runny noses are now allergic rhinitis, PMS has become a psychiatric disorder, and hyperactive children have ADD.

Selling Sickness reveals how expanding the boundaries of illness and lowering the threshold for treatments is creating millions of new patients and billions in new profits, in turn threatening to bankrupt national healthcare systems all over the world. This Canadian edition includes an introduction placing the issue in a Canadian context and describing why Canadians should be concerned about the problem.

Ray Moynihan has covered the business of health care for more than a decade with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Financial Review, and the British Medical Journal. He is an award-winning journalist and the author of four books, including Selling Sickness, which has been translated into a dozen languages. Moynihan lives in Byron Bay, Australia.

Alan Cassels is a drug policy researcher at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, and is the co-author (with Ray Moynihan) of the international bestseller Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients.

"I found this book to be both fascinating and disturbing, and feel it has an important message for all of us." -Canadian Pharmaceuticals Journal

"This accessible study by top medical journalists delivers a disconcerting expose of the intricate connections between Big Pharma and the conventional medical establishment . . . The book is an insightful and informative read for those who support self-healing with safe and natural methods." -Alive Magazine

"A large body of evidence, well documented by authors Moynihan and Mintzes, points to some fascinating relationships between medical research and marketing." -Alive Magazine